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Book review: People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point

Artist Susan Point has been key in the revitalization and renewal of Coast Salish art style post-colonization.

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People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point

Robert D. Watt | Figure 1 Publishing

248pp


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“It wasn’t until I was in my late-20s, when I took a jewelry course at Vancouver Community College in January of 1981, that I discovered that we, as Coast Salish people, have our own unique art style. This discovery marked the beginning of my career, and for the past 37 years I have truly dedicated myself to reviving Coast Salish art.”

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This casual revelation in Susan Point’s artist’s statement opening this in-depth overview of her many public works seems hard to reconcile with her iconic status that the artist has achieved in the ensuing period. Her work is such a part of the visual art landscape of the region that it’s hard to imagine it ever not being here.

Yet the spectacular Coast Salish style was all but lost thanks to the concerted efforts of waves of assimilation policies targeting First Nations. Point’s journey of discovery took her deep into her cultural heritage to develop a style that both adheres to what is distinct in Coast Salish art (crescents, wedges and V-cuts are a few examples) and entirely her own creation. It’s in her public art designs where her site-specific research, respect for protocol and medium gets its best expression. Ensuing essays from everyone from the Museum of Anthropology’s Alan Shelton to book author and former archivist for the City of Vancouver Robert D. Watt outline how Point has tirelessly “honoured the art of her ancestors and the sniw (teachings) of her parents relations and Musqueam elders, while at the same time developing a personal style rooted in her research into surviving early Salish artworks.” (Watt).

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Follow the development and conceptual framework of such familiar works as the Welcome Figure outside the Museum of Anthropology (1997), the sidewalk medallions that Point and her daughter, Kelly Cannell, devised for the West Broadway Business Association along the 2800-3000 blocks of West Broadway, and, of course, the massive carved-and-oiled Western red-cedar spindle whorl titled Flight, which welcomes one and all to the Vancouver airport. Each accompanying explanation with photos is full of valuable information about the basis for each piece and how it has been expanded upon by the artist.

Susan Point's 'Flight,' the world's largest Coast Salish Spindle Whorl, is on display at YVR's international arrivals terminal.
Susan Point’s ‘Flight,’ the world’s largest Coast Salish Spindle Whorl, is on display at YVR’s international arrivals terminal. Photo by YVR

Better yet, the content goes well past Vancouver landmarks and travels up the coast, inland and beyond to include everything from the Frogs at the South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre to Written into the Earth’s cast-iron tree grates in Seattle’s CenturyLink Field. It becomes increasingly clear that Point’s vision isn’t only one that has been embraced throughout both the Pacific Northwest, but as far beyond as the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and even her work’s farthest reaches at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich.

By the end of People Among the People you have a much greater appreciation for the genius of this exceptional artist and how fortunate we are to have such a wealth of her work available to see on any given day.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

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